Mishaps and Inventions (8/17/08)

So today, I started early. I woke up at 8 something and began to get ready for church. My fauxhawk was a little askew as I got into the car, probably evidence of my sleepiness. As I was about to shut the door, I heard a buzzing sound. Once the door was closed, I noticed a sapphire blue, inch and a half long dragonfly that had joined me. Of course, it decided to try to exit from the back window, which is solid glass. I opened my windows and tried to usher the insect to freedom, and finally it decided that freedom was better than the headache that was coming due to the constant banging on the glass. Once emancipation had occurred, I headed for home.

I got home to find my dad getting ready for church. We talked about my first two days and I informed him that I had missed dinner the night before. He suggested cereal and I took the suggestion. With multi-grain cherios becoming energy, I began to feel a little more alert, but not much. I headed to church with Johnny in the driver seat. We pulled into the parking lot, the usual 2-3 minutes late.

Church began as it usually did: walk in, get bulletin, talk/shake hands with a few friends, and settle in to a pew just shy of the front. We sang a song, then took offering, then sang "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" and "Arise My Soul Arise", then began the usual hand shaking ritual. I talked to people about my first two days of college and how I was getting settled in, the usual stuff. We sat down again and Pastor Dan began his sermon.

The series that we were doing was about suffering, so today talked about why there is suffering in the world. He preached out of Romans 8:18-23, about how we suffer due to our own sin, and suffer with the knowledge that God has something planned that is infinitely better than our suffering. He talked about all the evil in the world, child molesting being posted on the internet, children being sold as sex slaves, millions dying in tsunamis, and other horrible tragedies that arise from our own evil. Our evil causes us to destroy all we touch, to kill each other, and made Jesus Christ come to die. He, Jesus, partook in our suffering, proving that He was a God that wouldn't just talk about suffering while sitting in perfect contentment while man suffered. It was a disturbing and beautiful representation of God's love and His hatred of suffering. Pastor talked about his son. He talked about how much he hated the fact that his son had Autism, hated that his son couldn't understand him, hated that his son saw everything but him. He said that that needs to be the way we need to view our belittlement of God. Jesus suffered the most that anyone ever suffered, so we need to view Him in that light.

Well, after church was done, I talked to a few more people about my coming journey into college and about what I was going to do over the next few weeks. Then Johnny and my dad went to the gas station to fill up. Home followed, followed by the Olympics, followed by my mom coming home, and followed by biscuits and gravy. After brunch, I made a mental list of what else I needed for my room, a chair other than the desk chair, a larger trash can, a dowel rod to hang my towel up with, and various other items. My dad and I got into the car and headed for Walmart.

Once at Walmart, we threaded through the hicks to find a hand towel. The hand towel was easy enough to find, but we needed other things. I got some double stick adhesive and some hangers, and got a bumper for our sailboat. I even got a lawn chair that I am going to have a cushion tailored to fit.  We were going to get a wastebasket too, but that proved to be a challenge. The lady in lawn and garden said that the baskets were in the office section, wrong. We looked everywhere, no waste-baskets. Finally we found some, and I got one. We tried to find a basket for my shampoo and body wash, but no dice. We checked out and left, obviously. 

When I got home, I remembered the dinner that I was going to need to attend for Marching Band. My dad was staining the dowel rod for my towel and suggested that I check my email. I tried, I really did. I got on the computer, went to the bookmark for Marian email, but the page didn't load, at all. I decided that it was time to leave, so I left my clothes that I had brought home and rationalized that I would get them sometime the coming week. I booked it to Marian, parked at Clare, went upstairs, got on my laptop, went to the Marian email (which loaded), and clicked on the email that detailed the dinner. My heart sank, I was fifteen minutes late. The email said the group was departing at 5:45 sharp, I had arrived at Marian at 6:00 sharp. The dinner was mandatory, but not for me I guess.... I decided that I should settle for cafeteria food.

I walked downstairs and got some peas and noodles and decided to sit with a group of upperclassmen, one of which is an RA on my floor. I sat next to Corrine, who was very friendly and asked me how I got to Marian, bad idea, but a good idea at the same time. I told my story, careful to emphasize the Divine intervention that was key to my arrival, and finished with the same emphasis. I tried to engage the Sophomores in their conversation, but didn't know what to say (considering I had never been to Marian before). At least there was a new student, though he was a transfer and a sophomore, he managed to keep me from being the only Marian newbie in the conversation. I headed back upstairs after the conversation became "heated" and began to write on the blog.

I was finished for the time being on the blog, and knew that there was a meeting or something for my floor. I talked with Dan for the first real time, seeing as his girlfriend had left, so the times were a little less boring. Dan and I went downstairs to check out the meeting and found no one. Confused, we headed back upstairs and ran into Reid, our RA, talking to some people in the hallway. After an inquiry as to the location of the meeting, Reid said that they were for the upperclassmen that had moved in in the morning. Faced with nothing to do due to the lack of a scheduled activity, I decided to get to know some of the guys on my floor. I tried to keep up with the conversation in the hall, but eventually it moved due to people leaving. I walked a few feet down the hall to my dorm and went inside. A minute later, maybe, Luke Leichte came in to talk and to check out our digs, commenting on the spaciousness especially. I was indifferent, but then we got more visitors, a couple of girls from the second floor. Shortly after, another guy named Ronnie from down the hall came and the crowd became a party of sorts. Luke spotted my guitar and began to pluck out a few chords. I adjusted the gain and volume to a level sufficient enough not to disturb the neighbors, but was then given the guitar back to me and asked to play something. I strummed a few chords as well, and then put it up.

Luke and the girls left, but Ronnie stayed to show us some fireworks thing on the internet, then talked about his year last year. He left, and both Dan and I decided to call it a night, knowing that in the morning I needed to get up at 6.